Holiday?

I opted not to take the holiday today and instead go in for work. I'm planning to take it Thursday or Friday instead in order to execute the plan I mentioned last week.

I've been reading through Forbe's 400 wealthiest Americans recently. I'm trying to figure out what is the difference between the successful and the immensely successful. It seems that with most of the people on the list the commonality is that they started their own business or financed someone else starting a business. Also, there is a large number of people who made their money in real estate or oil. The other large chunk seems to be the people who run investment firms.

The most important thing to take from this is that all of these people work in areas where you can cut out a large amount of taxes. Real estate can have some phantom costs that counter balance the income. Investments are taxed at a lower rate when held for the long term and dividends are taxed at a lower rate as well. And when you start your own business, you are basically a partner with the government, employing people that they would otherwise have to look out for, so they are willing to cut you some slack on different expenses that would normally be paid for with after tax money.

For the past year or two I've been trying to move my money over to these types of asset classes. I recently discussed my portfolio breakdown. I keep a certain amount in liquid reserve for emergencies and other things that I'm planning on buying. The rest I'm moving into areas where it will generate money and then be taxed less.

I've been starting to feel like I should section off some money to invest in my business so I can step up the growth a notch. While it's nice and easy at this pace, it's also going to take a long time to start moving in a direction that will create exponential growth. I'm not sure exactly how and where to put some injected capital yet, but I'll be working through options.

Also, over the weekend I had a discussion with one of my advisers. She thinks it would be a bad idea to bail on this job after 6 months. Since I just left a job after about a year and a half, any prospective companies would start to think of me like I will only be there for 6 months. While my business pursuits are still small I'm going to need a full time job to keep me afloat, so breaking down that option, while motivating, could lead to potential ruin. So I think I'm just going to focus on making what I do at work more inline with my goals by trying to get more involved with other areas. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do that yet, but I'll be working on that as well.

For all those who did take the holiday off today, congrats and I hope it was restful and relaxing.